"My Lord..." Charles Xavier murmured.
Not once since he had met Erik Lehnsherr more than forty years ago had the man ever looked so vulnerable. His hair matted to his skull with sweat, Magneto trembled erratically on his knees.
"Is she killing him?" Cyclops asked.
Xavier shook his head. To see his old friend drooling through clenched teeth was far too surreal for him. "He won't physically die, no," Xavier replied. "She's trying to turn his mind off."
"Rachel!" Nightcrawler teleported to her side. He lowered his voice for her ears only. "Liebchen, you can't go through with this. It's wrong. You're doing the same thing that Magneto was."
Rachel's gaze didn't leave Magneto. Instead, the girl brought a hand up and stroked Nightcrawler's cheek. In an instant Nightcrawler was falling towards the ground, unconscious.
"She's really going to go through with it," Cyclops muttered. "Rachel!"
"I don't see what the big deal is," Wolverine said. "He's getting as good as he can give."
"The X-Men aren't like that," Cyclops growled. "We're protectors, not murderers."
"Then you have quite the predicament, fearless leader." Wolverine nodded towards Magneto and Rachel.
"You aren't helping anything," Cyclops snapped.
"Enough," Xavier interrupted. "Cyclops, you and I are going to go to the astral plane. Wolverine, look after our bodies while we're gone."
"Astral plane?" Wolverine raised an eyebrow.
"It's the psychic world," Xavier explained before his body and Cyclops' went limp.
"Psychic world," Wolverine muttered. "Right. I'm going to have a cigar, you don't mind, do you, wheels? I didn't think so."
Scott Summers only blinked, but in that short time he knew something had greatly changed. He was still in a hallway in Bushnell Theater, that much he was certain of. But it was so quiet.
Wolverine was gone. And so was Nightcrawler. And Magneto and Mystique. Only ethereal fog remained to paint the halls in hazy shades of purple. Something was wrong.
"Scott."
He stifled a gasp as he felt a hand on his shoulder. Scott turned to face his mentor. Standing.
"You're-"
"Everything that happens on the astral plane is powered by your mind alone," Xavier said. "It's no less real, only different. You are as powerful as your thoughts."
"Is that Rachel?" Scott pointed at the small child in a corner, hugging her knees.
"It would appear so," Xavier replied.
"She said that I was her father," Scott said.
"Her thoughts are sincere, so she could very well be telling the truth," Xavier offered. "Of course, she could also be delusional."
Scott lingered back as Professor Xavier approached the little girl. He placed a hesitant hand atop her long red curls.
"Rachel?" Xavier said. "Is that you, child?"
"Grandpa Xavier?" she sniffled. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, I was worried about you," the older man replied. "So I came to find you."
"You shouldn't have come." Rachel rubbed her tears fiercely. "Franklin's way more powerful than me. You should be spending time with him."
"Franklin can wait," Xavier told her. "You're troubled. Will you tell me what's wrong?"
"It's the voices, Grandpa," Rachel confessed. "They're so loud."
"Your telepathy?" Xavier asked. "There are shields you can learn."
"But when they die, they're so loud, Grandpa," Rachel whimpered. "It hurts."
"When who dies, Rachel?" Xavier asked. "I want to help you."
"When they killed Daddy, they took me away," Rachel babbled.
As she talked, her long hair fell out and the indigo tattoos cut across the girl's face.
"I made a good hound too, killed lots of muties." Rachel's form was wavering between child and teenager. "Now I'm all alone. Everyone's dead. You're dead too, Grandpa."
"But I'm right here," Xavier began.
"No!" Rachel screeched. "You're dead too! I saw it!"
Xavier leapt back as Rachel erected a twisted steel fence between them. He grazed his hand over the rusted barbed wire of the girl's psychic shield and shuddered.
Scott joined his mentor's side.
"I think I've got this," he whispered.
Xavier nodded.
Scott Summers closed his eyes and concentrated as he reached out for the fence. The man known as Cyclops smiled as he felt a door handle and made a path for himself.
"Go away, Grandpa," Rachel sobbed. "You're dead. I saw it."
"You're causing quite a bit of trouble, do you know that?" Scott asked.
"Daddy?" Immediately Rachel reverted to her child form.
"Do you feel like talking or crying?" he asked.
In seconds the bawling child was in his arms. With a sigh, Scott began to comfort the girl. When Rachel's shaking had calmed, she looked up at him with bloodshot eyes.
"I miss Mom," she said.
Scott felt his throat go dry. He patted the top of her head.
"So do I," he murmured. "But do you really think she would have liked what you're doing now?"
Rachel frowned. "No, I guess not," she said. "But I just wanted to make everything better and Magneto always gets in the way of your plans."
"Don't let him drag you down to his level," Scott urged.
The child pulled away from his arms. As she gazed up at him, Rachel aged to the young woman that she was. She shook her head.
"I thought about this thoroughly," she decided. "This is for the best."
"Rachel!" Scott screamed as he felt the astral plane slipping away from him.
Cyclops' nostrils twitched, agitated by the cigar smoke. As he forced his eyes open, he caught sight of Wolverine standing alert.
"Holy shit," Wolverine muttered.
"What's going on?" Cyclops demanded.
Rachel looked disoriented; he figured that it was probably from her time on the astral plane. Cyclops' opinion changed when he saw the determined look in Charles Xavier's eyes. Just because he had been torn from the astral plane, it didn't mean that the battle between the two telepaths was over.
With his newfound freedom, Magneto shot his hand out instinctively to defend himself. Every scrap of metal in Rachel's body was torn from her frame in an instant. The girl stood for a moment as if her body was unaware of the injuries it had sustained. Her eyes followed the blood that splattered the walls before she crumpled face first onto the ground.
Wolverine swore and threw himself at Magneto. Magneto gave the feral man a dull look and sent him into a wall. His numb hands found his helmet and with that safely on his head, he collected Mystique.
"Creed is yours, Charles," Magneto murmured.
He hurried off with Mystique in tow.
Charles Xavier looked blankly at Cyclops who was at Rachel's side. He thought ruefully on how he was supposed to be the world's most powerful telepath.
"Rachel..." Cyclops whispered.
Rachel smiled, but her eyes were glazing over. No final words or heartfelt exchanges. Only death.
"We should go." Xavier cleared his throat.
Wolverine quietly slung the unconscious Nightcrawler over his shoulder. Cyclops wiped some blood from Rachel's cheek and stood up, ready.*
"Ah, Kitty Pryde, girl genius! She has the ability to make a weapon of mass destruction out of a toaster." Kitty yawned. "So what kind of job does she get? Chauffer. Professor Xavier is a jerk."
The X-Men's newest field member shifted in her seat on the Blackbird trying to find a position that wouldn't make her butt fall asleep. It wasn't working. She sighed.
"They should have at least put a sound system in this thing," she continued. "I'm so bored."
An idea struck the girl and she scurried over to the command console of the jet. So the radio was only supposed to be used for emergencies. The old people didn't seem to be having any difficulty at the presidential debate; they would have contacted her otherwise. If Kitty was lucky, she'd be able to get in touch with someone at the school. She could pass the time chatting about nothing with Jubilee or Peter. It was too cruel to abandon a fifteen year old for hours on end in a pathetically entertainment-free jet.
"So the Blackbird isn't as empty as we had assumed," an amused voice said.
Kitty tensed and turned around slowly.
"Oh, Charles, you have been clever," Magneto murmured.
Mystique was at the older man's side in an instant. The blue skinned woman seemed a bit preoccupied with a bloodied rag pressed against her side. She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow.
"No, I don't think we'll need to kill this one," Magneto said gently. "We won't need to kill you, will we, child?"
"What do you want?" Kitty asked.
"Why, the Blackbird of course," Magneto answered. "Perhaps in exchange, we'll let you leave unharmed. Or perhaps, we could use a hostage."
The available courses of action flitted through the girl's mind and she frowned. Kitty sighed and shook her head.
"Professor Xavier is going to be so mad," she mumbled.
"Very good." Magneto smiled. "You're smarter than you look. Take a seat child and enjoy the ride."
Every time Kitty Pryde used her mutant power her body felt tingly. Very rarely had she had a reason to use her ability so she hadn't quite gotten used to the sensation of her body's molecules becoming ephemeral. With a smirk, Kitty dashed backwards and in her intangible state, dove through the Blackbird's controls.
The jet's control console crackled and hissed as the girl's mutant power destroyed the electrical equipment. Safely outside, Kitty ran, determined to find her allies.